ho was entrusted with the blockade of the port of Nicomedia,
arrived too late. On the voyage the important Heraclea was indeed
betrayed to the king and occupied by him; but a storm in these waters
sank more than sixty of, his ships and dispersed the rest; the king
arrived almost alone at Sinope. The offensive on the part of Mithradates
ended in a complete defeat--not at all honourable, least of all
for the supreme leader--of the Pontic forces by land and sea.

Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus

Lucullus now in turn proceeded to the aggressive. Triarius
received the command of the fleet, with orders first of all
to blockade the Hellespont and lie in wait for the Pontic ships
returning from Crete and Spain; Cotta was charged with the siege
of Heraclea; the difficult task of providing supplies
was entrusted to the faithful and active princes of the Galatians
and to Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia; Lucullus himself advanced
in the autumn of 681 into the favoured land of Pontus, which had long
been untrodden by an enemy. Mithradates, now resolved to maintain
the strictest defensive, retired without giving battle from Sinope
to Amisus, and from Amisus to Cabira (afterwards Neocaesarea,
now Niksar) on the Lycus, a tributary of the Iris; he contented
himself with drawing the enemy after him farther and farther
into the interior, and obstructing their supplies and communications.
Lucullus rapidly followed; Sinope was passed by; the Halys, the old
boundary of the Roman dominion, was crossed and the considerable
towns of Amisus, Eupatoria (on the Iris), and Themiscyra (on
the Thermodon) were invested, till at length winter put an end
to the onward march, though not to the investments of the towns.
The soldiers of Lucullus murmured at the constant advance
which did not allow them to reap the fruits of their exertions,
and at the tedious and--amidst the severity of that season--
burdensome blockades. But it was not the habit of Lucullus
to listen to such complaints: in the spring of 682 he immediately
advanced against Cabira, leaving behind two legions before Amisus
under Lucius Murena. The king had made fresh attempts during the winter
to induce the great-king of Armenia to take part in the struggle;
they remained like the former ones fruitless, or led only
to empty promises. Still less did the Parthians show any desire
to interfere in the forlorn cause. Nevertheless a considerable army,
chiefly raised by enlistments in Scy